Hicks v. Adams, 692 F. App'x 647

Plaintiff Clarence Hicks, a federal prisoner proceeding pro se, sued federal prison officials under Bivens for actions relating to prison conditions at FCI Ray Brook.
The district court adopted a magistrate judge’s report and recommendation and dismissed Hicks’s complaint for failure to exhaust administrative remedies under the PLRA, and entered judgment for defendants.
Hicks appealed the dismissal; the Second Circuit reviewed the Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal de novo and considered only documents of which Hicks had notice or that were incorporated by reference.
Central factual dispute: Hicks claimed he attempted to file appeals after the warden rejected his grievances, alleging prison staff did not transmit his appeals; defendants maintained Hicks did not properly complete the required appeal steps.
The record showed Bureau of Prisons staff had informed Hicks how to proceed after a regional appeal was rejected as illegible, and Hicks did not allege specific facts showing staff thwarted his attempts to exhaust.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether Hicks exhausted administrative remedies under the PLRA before suing	Hicks asserted he attempted to file appeals but prison staff failed to transmit them	Defendants argued Hicks failed to follow required grievance appeal procedures and did not properly appeal the warden’s rejections	Court held Hicks failed to exhaust; dismissal affirmed
Whether Hicks plausibly alleged prison officials thwarted exhaustion	Hicks claimed staff prevented his appeals from being filed	Defendants pointed to instructions given to Hicks and lack of concrete facts showing interference	Court held Hicks’s conclusory assertions insufficient to show thwarting
Whether the grievance process was "unavailable" or "opaque"	Hicks implied procedures were effectively unavailable because staff didn’t file his appeals	Defendants argued procedures were clear and staff informed Hicks how to cure illegible submissions	Court held procedures were not so opaque or unavailable; proper exhaustion required
Whether any district-court sua sponte dismissals were preserved on appeal	Hicks argued against earlier sua sponte dismissals under §1915(e)/§1915A	Defendants treated the earlier dismissals as not properly raised on appeal	Court treated these arguments as abandoned because Hicks didn’t raise them in opening brief

Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Fed. Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971) (recognized implied damages action against federal officials)
Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81 (2006) (‘‘proper exhaustion’’ requires compliance with procedural rules)
Ross v. Blake, 136 S. Ct. 1850 (2016) (administrative remedies are unavailable when the scheme is opaque or officials thwart use)
Williams v. Corr. Officer Priatno, 829 F.3d 118 (2d Cir. 2016) (Rule 12(b)(6) review and examples of plausible allegations of thwarting grievance process)
Tongue v. Sanofi, 816 F.3d 199 (2d Cir. 2016) (documents known to or relied upon by plaintiff may be considered on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion)